His easy-on-the-ears stylings have made this sax player a superstar in the smooth-jazz realm, although that tag doesn't do him justice. He may well be the John Coltrane of vaguely funky schmaltz.

"I think we're going to have fun tonight," Koz, 46, announced early on. Despite the sedative nature of "Honey Dipped," "Surrender," "Castle of Dreams" and other instrumentals heavy on feel-good melody and devoid of anything remotely edgy, the audience proved not only receptive, but downright excitable.

I kept waiting for a disembodied voice to say: "Today, considerable cloudiness. High, 61." Koz's music is huge on the Weather Channel.

Koz was a triple threat on tenor, alto and sopranino saxophones. He often stood with legs splayed and wore an expression of intense concentration while wildly swinging his horn up and down and side to side, as if wielding some terrifying weapon of mass destruction.

Then again, in some ways, perhaps he was.

Koz proved to be a firm believer in the adage that if something is worth doing, it's worth overdoing. Halfway through the show, he slipped into the audience to deliver a melodramatic "Over the Rainbow." We weren't in Kansas anymore. Unfortunately, we didn't quite make it to Oz, either.

The showboating proved contagious, as Koz's bandmates took turns hamming it up onstage. The silliness reached critical mass when musical director Brian Simpson stepped into the spotlight to execute a keytar solo behind his back.

During "Can't Let You Go (The Sha La Song)," fans kept singing the sha-la-la refrain long after the song was over.

"We could do this all night," a visibly gratified Koz remarked.

Mercifully, he opted instead to bring the performance to a close with "You Make Me Smile."

At least the evening got off to a respectable start, courtesy of Joe Sample. Accompanied by a nimble rhythm section with his son Niklas on bass, the versatile jazz pianist effortlessly alternated between elegant chords and shrieking bluesy solos.

Peppered with personal anecdotes between numbers, Sample's enjoyable set mixed original fare such as "Rainbow Seeker" with evocative readings of "Gee, Baby, Ain't I Good to You" and "Stormy Weather." At the end of the latter standard, the proverbial clouds parted to give way to a bright, uptempo finale.

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